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Castro Blasts Ahmadinejad as Anti-Semitic

Kompas.com - 08/09/2010, 11:38 WIB

HAVANA, KOMPAS.com – Fidel Castro criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what he called his anti-Semitic attitudes and questioned his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 during interviews with an American journalist he summoned to Havana to discuss fears of global nuclear war.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogged on the magazine's website Tuesday that he was on vacation last month when the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington — which Cuba maintains there instead of an embassy — called to say Castro had read his recent article about Israel and Iran and wanted him to come to Cuba.

Goldberg asked Julia Sweig, a Cuba-U.S. policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, to accompany him, and the pair spent portions of three days talking with Castro.

Cuba's state-controlled media reported Aug. 31 that Goldberg and Sweig met with Castro and attended the dolphin show at Havana's aquarium, but the blog was the first to reveal details of what they discussed.

Goldberg said their first meeting lasted five hours and featured appearances by Castro's wife, Dalia, his son Antonio, and several bodyguards, two of which held his elbow to steady Castro when he moved.

"His body may be frail, but his mind is acute, his energy level is high," wrote Goldberg, who also noted Castro's self-deprecating humor.

The 84-year-old ex-president wore full military fatigues and an olive-green cap while addressing university students last week, and had previously appeared in public in a military shirt. But Goldberg saw Castro in a red shirt, sweat pants, and black New Balance sneakers.

He said Castro, who himself has been a fierce critic of Israel, "repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism," chiding Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust. Castro said that Iran could further the cause of peace by "acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence."

The gray-bearded revolutionary related to Goldberg a story from his childhood that has been detailed by some biographers: that he overheard classmates saying Jews killed Jesus Christ.

"I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds," Goldberg quoted Castro as telling him. Castro later added, "This is how ignorant the entire population was."

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